The 26th Annual Meeting of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society will be held at the Westin St. Francis, San Francisco, CA, September 1-5, 2004. The General Conference Chair is Donna L. Hudson and the Technical Program Chair is Zhi-Pei Liang. The Conference is designed to bring together engineers, scientists, medical researchers, practitioners, educators, and students interested in applying science and technology to biology and medicine. The theme for the conference is: Linkages for Innovation in Biomedicine, emphasizing the importance of interdisciplinary approaches in moving technical advances into clinical practice. Its scope covers all topics relevant to biomedical engineering, including traditional areas such as signal analysis, diagnostic- and research imaging, and rehabilitation engineering as well as emerging areas such as nanotechnology, cellular/molecular-level imaging, and tissue engineering. The conference in San Francisco will emphasize interdisciplinary research and will include academic, government, and industrial researchers. The conference will include a number of mini-symposia that focus on in-depth discussions with domain experts, special invited sessions, and contributed refereed oral and poster presentations. Student papers are included in regular scientific sessions and are also eligible for a student paper competition. Other special student activities include a student design competition, breakfast sessions for interaction with academic and industrial leaders, and tours of local academic and industrial research facilities. All papers are published in the conference proceedings.